Longwoods Blog
Fact and Stats
New British research has found that more than 4% of electronic prescriptions written by general practitioners contain errors. Researchers from Reading University in UK have been studying prescription data from 15 general practices over the past 18 months and are on the verge of publishing the results. Lead researcher, Dr. Rachel Howard, presented preliminary results at a forum on electronic prescribing held in London.
She said the research found that 4% of the prescriptions had “significant clinical errors” and another 0.9% had errors relating to the monitoring of medicines. She told the news service eHealth Insider, the research was the first to examine the rate of prescription errors in general medicine since electronic prescribing had been rolled out across the board.
Dr. Howard said the research suggested that some of the problems lay in a lack of therapeutic training and in doctors dealing with drugs with which they were not familiar. Being unfamiliar with a patient also contributed to prescription errors, particularly at walk-in centres.
Despite the assumption that electronic prescribing would help clinicians by eliminating illegibility, certain parts of systems were “extremely dangerous”, Dr. Howard added. She said pick lists of drugs, which arrange the options in alphabetical order, could easily lead to clinicians prescribing the wrong drug. In order to avoid prescription errors Dr. Howard suggested practices should establish a local formulary so doctors could prescribe drugs they were familiar with.
Other ideas to come out of the research include providing a link within the electronic prescribing system to the British National Formulary and increasing communication within practices and the wider health provider network. The Reading University study has been funded by the General Medical Council and is expected to be published in the next six months.
Source: Research finds GP e-prescribing errors
Date: October 25, 2011
Around the World
Italy: Free Smartphone App Provides Lifesaving Information in Case of Emergency
Czech Republic: Portal Launched as Central Point of Information for the Czech Health System
Spain: Madrid Hospital Sends Patients Appointment Reminders via SMS
Mobile Health Technology is Key to Repositioning Nigeria’s Healthcare System
News from Canada
MRT Week in Canada: A Celebration of Canada’s Medical Radiation Technologists
Trends
EHR Market to Hit $6.5B (US) by 2012
Four Best Health IT Innovations within the Past Year
University of Michigan Health System Partners with Great Lakes Health Information Exchange
EHR Adoption Reaches 75% for Larger Physician Offices
Industry Speak
Belgium Hospital Chooses PACS Cloud Service
International Student Competition: Siemens is Seeking Ideas on the Future of Healthcare
Agfa HealthCare Shows its Most Comprehensive Digital Radiography Portfolio at JFR 2011
Fujitsu and Osmosyz Pioneer New Healthcare Standard for Electronic Clinical Documents
Canadian Market Research
Access up-to-date market intelligence on the Canadian healthcare IT landscape based on data from the HIMSS Analytics Canadian DatabaseSM. Research that can help healthcare IT vendors and consultants expand into the Canadian market and become more competitive in the space. ITAC members receive a 15% discount. For more information click here.
Infoway Update
Find Out What’s New and Happening at Canada Health Infoway
Worth Noting
EuroRec 2011 Annual Conference (Belgrade, Serbia)
e-Health Week 2012 (Copenhagen, Denmark)
e-Health 2012 (Vancouver, Canada)
Know. Learn. Implement. Subscribe to the Longwoods eLetter.
eHealthRecord.info brings you the latest news, best practices, policy and ideas in eHealth. The subject is salient to advancing the quality of care; our objective is to provide you with clarity and to keep you current. eHealthRecord.info is published every two weeks. You can, of course, opt in [or out] anytime; just click here. Send this to a colleague who might be interested; they too can just sign up. Tell us what you think or what you would like included: email the editor.
eHealthRecord.info is made possible by an educational grant from: 
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Longwoods Online.